1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system for handling assembly parts or workpieces, comprising a gripper device with adjustable gripper elements, e.g. pivotable gripper jaws, and housing guiding and/or driving devices for the gripper elements, and a carrier frame of the handling system coupled with the gripper device for movement therewith.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various handling systems, also referred to as workpiece feed systems or manipulator devices, are known. In such a device for infeed or extraction of assembly parts according to my U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,872, several rectilinear guiding tracks are aligned at an angle to each other and allow for a movement of a gripper device in three spatial directions. In this known handling system, the gripper device has a guiding means secured with a clamping means in an intermediate carrier. The intermediate carrier is displaceable along a guiding track in a bracket or holder which is displaceable at right angles to the guiding track. Thanks to this construction of the gripper device with a guiding means, different gripper devices may be secured to the same clamping means of the intermediate carrier so that a replacement of the gripper device is easily possible. The gripper device, however, is assembled from separate parts so that the production of such gripper devices is comparatively costly. While this handling system proved very satisfactory in practice, it has been found that it does not provide a satisfactory solution in all applications.